A Crash Course in Candid Conversations
by chelseyb1010
Summary: Harry did everything he was supposed to. So why is he sitting at a bar afraid to go home & conversing with less than helpful ghosts? Oneshot. Canon-compliant through DH, could be seen as ignoring the epilogue. A response to a challenge.


**Disclaimer:** The characters and world herein belong only to JK Rowling.

**Author's Note:** No bashing whatsoever, but not perhaps for Harry/Ginny fans. This was written for the Weekly Insanity Challenge in the Teacher's Lounge forum, using the following prompt: "Write a fic of at least 500 words where a character considers a divorce from his/her spouse. It must be a canon pairing. The ending does not have to be canon."

* * *

**A Crash Course in Candid Conversations**

_I did everything I was supposed to do._

Harry James Potter, husband to Ginny, father to James, Albus, and Lily, the Boy Who Lived, the Man Who Won, and Head Auror, stared at the glass in front of him and wondered how he got to this point. Sitting in the Hog's Head on a Wednesday afternoon drinking firewhiskey and feeling utterly empty.

There had been a time in his life when he thought that when (if) Voldemort was out of the picture, he could actually start living. Not many things put more of a damper on looking forward to the future than the knowledge that he would have to kill or be killed, losing loved ones all the while. And standing outside Hogwarts on that terrible, glorious May morning watching the sun come up, his two very best friends at his side, Harry had felt _alive._ Tired, worn, sad, and more alive than he had ever been. For the first time in his life, he had a future. A good one. He had goals that consisted of more than 'don't die.'

And now here he sat over a dozen years later in a dingy pub while he should be at work. Slouched over the bar with the hood of his cloak pulled forward to hide his distinctive features. Who would have thought the Chosen One would be seeking solace in the bottom of a glass of amber liquid long after his victorious final confrontation with Voldemort?

"Who would have thought that the great Harry Potter would still be indulging in walloping bouts of self-pity well into adulthood?"

Very deliberately Harry turned and blinked at the sallow-skinned, greasy-haired figure next to him. "You have to be kidding me."

"I taught you for six years," Severus Snape replied. "Do I kid?"

Harry tipped his glass in the direction of his former professor, conceding the point. "What are you doing here? And what are you? A ghost, an I-am-not-nearly-that-drunk hallucination?"

"You called me here. You tell me." Snape observed the unsavory population of the pub with the same air of disdain he'd once reserved for his classes.

Harry all but gaped at him. "I called you here? Are you daft? I'm contemplating the demise of my marriage. You are the last person I would ask for love advice. You'll probably tell me to obsess over and semi-stalk her for years."

There was the glower that he remembered. A Snape that was anything but sneering was unsettling. "You haven't changed one bit, Potter. Sitting around and waiting for someone else to fix your problems for you. Of course, I was the only one who ever realized that that was exactly how you got by."

Harry leaned forward, rubbing his eyes. Of all the dead people to talk to while he was at his lowest, it had to be Snape. He was really losing his mind.

"I don't want to be here anymore than you do, so why don't we just get on with this?"

"Oh joy. I'm having Occlumency lesson flashbacks." Snape merely waited, nothing but a bored expression on his face, and Harry sighed. He was at a bar, about to share his marital problems with Severus Snape. Perhaps he was drunker than he realized.

"I loved her once. I know I did. Sixth year, after the war, when we married … I did love Ginny. Now ... I'm not so sure. Somewhere it changed. Maybe I love the idea of her more than Ginny herself. She gave me a family – not just my kids, but brothers, sisters, parents, nieces, nephews. Now we're the Potters. The perfect family. The Boy Who Lived and the girl who waited for him. I should be grateful, right?"

Snape's lip curled. "I would expect you to successfully brew the Draught of Living Death before I expect you to be grateful for anything."

"You know what?" Harry snapped. "Now that you're not my professor, I can tell you this: you're a complete arsehole."

"And you are as thick-headed as ever, Potter. Why are you wasting my time discussing this with me and not your wife?" Snape spat.

Harry absorbed this. He and Ginny had been communicating nearly exclusively through or about the children for so long. He didn't even know if he knew how to talk to her anymore.

"But what if -?" He broke off, staring at the empty seat. Gone without even saying goodbye. "Talk about ungrateful. I named my kid after him, the git."

"I gotta be honest, Harry, it's not the nicest name, and I know a thing or two about horrible names."

His head swiveled to the person on the opposite side of him. Well, if he had to be seeing ghosts or whatever was going on, this was much more pleasant. "Hello, Tonks."

"Wotcher, Harry." She twirled a lock of pink hair, gazing enviously at his drink. "Merlin, I'd kill for some firewhiskey."

"I'd share, but, you know … So why are you here?"

She shrugged. "I'm here because I'm here."

He stared. "Dumbledore teach you that sort of shite?"

"You'd be surprised," she said, laughing. "So what's going on? Young Ginny not tickle your pickle enough these days?"

"No, that's not it at all!" he protested hastily, blanching. Even if their sex life had fallen by the wayside, he wasn't about to say that to Tonks. Or ghost Tonks, or whatever she was.

"I didn't reckon. If I remember correctly, that's one thing those Weasleys can do well and often. Though they've nothing on a werewolf, let me tell you, those few days before the full moon, he's –"

"He used to be my professor," Harry mumbled with a pained expression. "Merlin, Tonks, please?"

"Sorry," she said, not at all abashed. She glanced around much more fondly than Snape had. "Ah, I spent so much time here that year I was stationed in Hogsmeade. Doing the same thing you are, actually, although I believe I was never quite as good at brooding as you are. Aberforth still keep those goats in the back?"

Harry grunted. Now it was hallucination social hour. And what goats?

Apparently she took that as a 'yes.' "Figured as much. So you don't love her?"

"I don't know. I never even gave myself time to doubt it. It was what I was supposed to do – marry Ginny, start a family, join the Aurors. I did everything I was supposed to, and yet ..."

"And yet here you are."

"And yet here I am," he repeated, taking a sip.

Tonks reclined against the bar on her elbows, surveying the crowd. "What you're saying is you never sowed your wild oats."

Harry chuckled briefly, sounding more amused than he was. Was that it? He'd never dated anyone besides Ginny, except for Cho, if he could even count that. But he'd never wanted to date anyone else. Even now, he didn't want someone else. He just wasn't sure he still wanted what he had.

"I've loved Ginny since ... well, I loved Ginny when I was sixteen," he said. "Do you know what I used to do when we were in that tent searching for Horcruxes? I would stare at the Marauder's Map, just watching Ginny's name. The first time I saw her after all those months ... I can't describe how it felt." Only belatedly did he realize Tonks might not know what the Marauder's Map was, despite marrying one of the creators, but then he decided that attempting to use logic while talking to a dead person was probably a useless exercise.

"You're not sixteen anymore, Harry. Not sixteen, not seventeen or eighteen," she replied more gently than he expected. Then she grinned. "That's really what you did with your spare time? I always assumed you and Hermione were getting well acquainted with each other while Ron was gone."

"Me and Hermione?" Harry sputtered in consternation. "She's like a sister to me! Well, she is my sister-in-law."

"Oh sure, but you're stuck in a tent with no one but your best friend of the opposite sex, afraid you'll die any day, seventeen and all that implies ... when I was seventeen, Charlie Weasley was my best friend, and it didn't take a tent for us to explore that aspect of each other." She sighed dramatically. "You wasted such an opportunity."

"Didn't need to know that," he said loudly. How had they even gotten to Tonks's teenage sex life? "I didn't waste anything. That's way too weird. Having sex with Hermione would be like having sex with Luna or Fleur or you."

She arched her eyebrows, perfectly matched with her now-turquoise hair. Great, now he had to deal with an offended spirit on top of everything else. "What's wrong with me? I'll have you know I would have rocked your world, Harry." She winked. "Too bad for you I always fancied the older ones."

"I'll chalk that one up as a missed opportunity, then," he said dryly. "Another regret."

"I was never much for regrets."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Really? No regrets?"

"Well, living would have been nice." For the first time, a shadow of sadness crossed her face. "However, I did what was best."

"I did what I thought was best, and it landed me here," he complained. "So that's your professional opinion? I regret not dating around, and I should live without regrets?"

"I can't tell you what to do. But Harry?" She leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "I _never_ did what I was supposed to."

"Isn't it too late for me to take that route, Tonks? Tonks?" Now she was gone, and Harry was not only no closer to solving his problems, he was beginning to question his sanity.

"Technically that's not her name anymore, but she won't answer to anything else."

Harry paused, taking a long pull of his drink. This was becoming a routine. He swung his gaze to his other side, another former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher occupying that same stool. "I always wondered what you called her."

"Dora, but it takes a lot for her to allow it. I wouldn't recommend trying if you're fond of your limbs," Remus Lupin answered. As with the last time he had appeared to Harry, he looked far younger than he had in real life.

"Should I even ask why you're here?" The familiar kind smile answered that question. "So far I've had one person insult me and another talk mostly about sex. No offense to your wife, of course – she was very complimentary of you. I'm curious as to what I should expect from you."

"What do you want from me?"

Was it written in the hallucination rule book that they must be enigmatic? "I want you to tell me how to fix my marriage," Harry said firmly. Remus had always been someone he could turn to for honest advice. "Or if it's even fixable."

"Do you want to fix it?"

Harry ran a weary hand through his hair. "That's the question, isn't it? I think of the boys and Lily, and my answer is yes. Without a doubt. Stay together for the children, right? They need both of us."

"Parents shouldn't leave their kids unless they've got to." Harry flushed at this, but Remus nodded. "I was angry at the time, but later I never respected you more. It was true. But leaving your wife doesn't equate leaving your kids. You'll still be there for them, both you and Ginny, even if you aren't married any longer."

"But it's more than that. Merlin, Ginny's been there since my fifth year. Half my life, really, and nearly all of the part that matters. I can't throw that away, and I can't imagine my life without her." Harry lapsed into contemplative silence, nearly forgetting his audience. If his audience even actually existed. "But I don't know if I can imagine my life with her anymore. There hasn't been that … that _thing_ in a long time, do you know what I mean? The spark or whatever. But what if it's just a rough patch?"

"Speaking as one who spent about the first half of my marriage in a rough patch," Remus said wryly. "There is a difference between a rough patch and a dissolution of love. You just have to decide which it is."

Harry slammed his glass on the bar, startling the hag at the end. "I spent my adolescence trying to stay alive and killed a dark wizard by the time I came of age. You think the hard part of my life would be over. It all seemed so clear at the time. Kill Voldemort, Harry. Stay alive. Then you can marry Ginny and live happily ever after. So I did all that. Everything I was supposed to do, I did. Win, marry, work, procreate, raise, live. I did it."

"And now what?"

"Now – I don't know. Damn it, Remus, this would be so much easier if it was something I could put my finger on. If one of us cheats or falls for someone else, then it's over. If it's a fight, then we make up and move on. But this bloody nothingness is killing me."

Remus patted his shoulder, or at least appeared to. Harry didn't feel anything. "You know what to do, Harry. You just have to do it."

"No, I don't. Oh, of course, you're leaving, too," Harry protested as the figure disappeared. He had had high hopes for that one.

He returned his attention to the stool on the opposite side, waiting for someone else to appear. Who would it be this time? Fred, Dumbledore, Dobby even, or – his heart rose – Sirius or his parents? When no one appeared, he looked to the other side eagerly. It, too, remained empty. This couldn't be it. They hadn't told him anything useful!

"Come back!" he shouted, earning strange stares from the other patrons who had thus far seemed unaware of his conversations.

Well. He was on his own again, just Harry and a refilling glass of firewhiskey. He sank back into gloom. He did everything he was supposed to, and nothing turned out right. Sitting at the bar as the shadows grew longer, Harry replayed his conversations with the specters, visions, whatever they'd been. Perhaps simply representations of his own consciousness. As he recalled the words exchanged, he realized that although they hadn't said much to him, he'd said plenty to them. And maybe that was what he needed all along.

"Aberforth!" he called.

The old bartender turned, the piercing blue eyes so similar to his brother's startling Harry even now. Harry nodded at his glass and dropped a handful of coins on the bar, and Aberforth grunted in acknowledgement.

Despite the long afternoon, he hadn't drank all that much, and judging himself more than sober enough to apparate, he did just that, appearing silently in the garden of their house in Godric's Hollow.

"Ginny?" he said, walking inside. The house was unusually quiet, free of the shouts and giggles of three small children.

"In here."

He followed her voice to the drawing room, where he found his wife curled on the sofa with a glass of wine. Her expression was carefully schooled, mirroring his own.

"Where are the kids?" he asked.

"At my mum's for the night." Ginny took a deep breath. "Harry, we need to talk."

Harry swallowed as he took a seat opposite her. This was it. "Yes, we do."


End file.
